


Archenemy

by Elster



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-16
Updated: 2010-09-16
Packaged: 2017-10-11 21:43:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/117428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elster/pseuds/Elster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Young Holmeses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Archenemy

Mycroft doesn't like his little brother for the first few years. He is very small, endlessly crying, a stupid needy thing, soaking up attention left and right. Then he starts walking – well, moving first, not actually walking – and begins to follow Mycroft everywhere. Mummy finds it adorable. Mycroft thinks that it's the most annoying thing in his life. Being responsible, doing the responsible thing, watching out for Sherlock. 

He's a strange kid, never talking, only endlessly watching with his big winter sky eyes. He doesn't talk for so long Mummy begins to worry, but one day he starts, asks Mycroft what a chameleon is, because it's the only thing in his alphabet book he doesn't know. Mycroft makes the error of telling him and that's it, Sherlock doesn't stop for over a year. Except for sleep and food, the mouth is always running, telling Mycroft everything Sherlock sees, every observation, every question he has. 

It's like a crash course in being Sherlock, something Mycroft never particularly cared about. Before, his little brother was some kind of ornamental thing, rather like one of the antique pieces of furniture they have or like a pet. Now, all of a sudden, he is a person and Mycroft finds that he rather likes him. He teaches Sherlock to read, mainly to shut him up for an hour or two. It works. He's quick and brilliant, brighter than each one of Mycroft's classmates anyway.

Mycroft finds school incredibly boring, he hates it, all those hours of sitting around and all those stupid kids. Sherlock throws a tantrum about two times a week when Mycroft has to go in the morning and he has to stay at home with the au pair. It's a bit strange to admit, after four years of not liking his little brother, that Mycroft misses him when he's in school. Sherlock is younger and a bit slow at times, but he gets Mycroft, he understands what Mycroft says. And Sherlock likes him, unconditionally, not like the stupid kids at school who say he's creepy.

Mycroft is bored and lonely for about two years before teachers start to show up at home and talk to Mummy about scholarship programs for gifted children. There are some tests and because Sherlock's around as he always is and wants to do what Mycroft does as he always wants, he gets to make one, too. They're both special as it turns out. They are both going to a new school, a less boring school. Mycroft is glad Sherlock doesn't have to put up with the stupid children, he was worried about that. Sherlock is so very small, so very much not used to other children. Anyway, he teaches him how to kick and to punch and to aim for the nose and ears, just to be sure.

At the new school there are far fewer children and for the first time in his life Mycroft really has the experience of being taught something rather than just picking it up and wondering about the endless repetitions. There's a strong spirit of competition, test results on the blackboard and things like that, always firing up the student's ambitions. Mycroft makes friends nevertheless, or what counts as friends here. Some kind of pleasant rivalry, comparing notes and checking out the competition. He wouldn't go as far as saying that he actually likes any of them, but they are new and interesting. 

Sherlock doesn't make any friends, he keeps to himself and works hard to make up for being younger. Mycroft doesn't really know how it happened, but it's like he didn't look for a moment or two and suddenly his little brother has gone from worshiping the ground he walks on to wanting to beat him at every opportunity. Mycroft knows that the real world is not like that, that normal people don't care about who has the most points in tests, but Sherlock has no clue about normal. He is a bit wild, a bit romantic in all the wrong ways.

“Mycroft and I, we're archenemies,” he says one day over dinner, when Mummy asks about school. It upsets her, she doesn't get it, but Mycroft smiles thinly. It's kind of cute, kind of quaint. A game between them. He was worried he might lose Sherlock. They turn out very different, Mycroft can see the beginnings. Sherlock is a dreamer, brilliant, but with his head in the clouds, not interested in the things that should matter and too much in things that don't. Mycroft is far more worldly, less idealistic. But he is glad that Sherlock offers him this connection. They can be archenemies, it's something special, something only they can be for each other, because no one else could keep up.

Sherlock grows from a strange child into an even stranger teenager, from being far too small for his age to being stretched tall, incredibly thin, all impossibly long limbs and awkward movements. He starts boxing classes to overcome this strangeness to his body. Mycroft finds himself a girl, because it seems to be the thing to do, and Sherlock looks at them like he's trying to figure out what's wrong with the picture.

“You know she's seeing someone else,” he comments when she's out of earshot, which is surprisingly considerate of him.  
Mycroft shakes his head. “I'm the someone else, strictly speaking.” He's mostly in it for the sex, but it would be rude to say so. He takes what she wants to give and they're both okay with that.  
Sherlock stalks them for a few weeks and the girl finds it unsettling and leaves. Mycroft's not too bothered. “What was that about?” he asks, interested, not mad.  
Sherlock shrugs. “I don't get what's so great about girls.”  
“Don't worry about it, there are more important things,” Mycroft says with a smile and Sherlock looks at him like he just offended him by making the most obvious and redundant remark in the history of mankind.

It's only a few weeks later when the police pays a visit. As it turns out, Sherlock's been corresponding quite frequently with Scotland Yard. Mostly to tell them why they're wrong. They're civil about it, have a tea with Mummy and a laugh about the fact that the person with the sensitive information is just thirteen, but they insist Sherlock has to stop making those things up. Mycroft can see it boil inside him, sees his lips become impossibly thin and his eyes become hard. Sherlock doesn't try to convince them, doesn't make a scene, he is too deeply insulted. He just draws into himself, sulking for days.

It's strange for Mycroft to see Sherlock hurt. His little brother was never at home in the real world, but it didn't matter, because he was so confident in his own world, always quite happy to just be himself, with Mycroft the only person he'd have to compete with. There was nothing and no one that could touch him. But now, somehow, he is invested in something, solving crimes of all things (he really is adorably romantic), and they won't let him play. More than that: they make fun of him.

It's unacceptable and Mycroft resolves to finding each and every police officer that ever ignored Sherlock and digging up dirt about them. They never know what hit them, but it's cathartic. Sherlock finds out somehow and comes into Mycroft's room, sprawling on his bed with one of his shoes on the pillow. Mycroft does a bit of frowning, but Sherlock isn't paying attention.

“I'll become so good, they won't be able to disregard me like this,” he says quietly, like he's utterly sure.  
Mycroft looks at him for a very long moment, notes how he has grown, how nothing about him is really as frail and vulnerable as he remembers it. Sherlock can deal with the world, he can pull himself together, it's just that Mycroft sometimes wishes he didn't have to. “Are you sure, that this is what you want to do?” he asks gingerly. “You want to be a- what? Detective? It sounds tedious.”

Sherlock gives him that stubborn look. “I would be good enough to pick my cases,” he says defiantly.  
“That's not really the issue. My point is that we have more potential, you and me. We should work together, politics or economics, doesn't really matter. We could be great.”  
That gets Sherlock to get himself up on his elbows and really look at his brother. “I don't care for politics or economics,” he says.  
Mycroft huffs. “No, you care for _crime_.” He says it like it's the silliest thing he's ever heard and it probably is.

Sherlock gives a sarcastic smile, a baring of teeth, and lets himself fall back on the bed. They are silent for a while, not happy with each other. “I just want to do something honest,” he says after some time and sounds a bit defeated, because he knows what his brother will think of this.  
Mycroft doesn't even try to find an answer. He can't for the life of him figure out where Sherlock picked up those bizarre ethics. It makes him smile, makes him sick, makes him want to laugh hysterically. It breaks his heart and it's incredibly infuriating. His little brother, his brilliant genius little brother, is an idealistic fool. God, he'll never be able to stop worrying about him, it will go on forever.

“Well, just let me know if you decide to actually do something with your life,” he says after a while and makes it sound as patronizing as possible.  
“So we can take over the world together?” Sherlock lies there, eyes closed and that broad mocking smile on his face.  
Mycroft sighs. “It is a standing offer,” he says earnestly.  
Sherlock's smile becomes lighter, genuinely amused. “That would make us terrible archenemies.”


End file.
